


Servants of the Morrigan

by fresne



Series: Triptych [1]
Category: Irish Mythology, Macbeth - Shakespeare
Genre: Ancient Celts, F/F, Yuletide, Yuletide 2015, Yuletide Treat, battle violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three servants of the Morrigan were called. They consecrated battles to the Morrigan. They wielded the magic of the world. They tested the hero at the ford. They served until their service was done. Until their hero came for them.</p><p>Badb often thought about her hero. </p><p>Macbeth was no hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Servants of the Morrigan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/gifts).



> Thanks to sixth_light for the SPAG Beta. Shoutout to the amazing yuletide beta list.  
> Any remaining errors are my own.
> 
> Some brief notes,  
> ~the ancient Celts thought the soul resided in the head, which is why they would either collect the heads of the their enemies, or keep their allies heads safe. Thus the decapitation (a sentence I never thought I'd type)  
> ~The Morrigan is the three fold Celtic goddess of battle, strife and ruling power, who were sometimes called: Badb, Macha, and Anad  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morr%C3%ADgan  
> ~Badb's village is based on Skara_Brae  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae  
> ~This story will be the Scottish one of the triptych

When Badb was just a babe screaming bloody murder in the stone crib by the fire, a squall roared in from the sea and over the village of Skaill.

That was the story they'd always told. Now Badb's Mama told it again. She whispered from her marriage bed set into the curve of the earthen wall, "You could not see the teats on your own chest for the snow." She hacked a cough that the end of winter hadn't shaken. "But we were snug as ticks on a dog's arse in our homes dug into the hill. Other tribes may go on about their wood and stone towers, but nothing's better than the earth."

Badb wanted to tell Mama that she didn't have to tell the tale. But she said nothing. She held Mama's weathered hand in her own and listened.

Mama's fingers squeezed tight. "There we were at winter's tasks, when a raven swooped down the shaft over the fire and perched on your crib. My sister thought it meant you were marked for death."

"But then I laughed," said Badb. She couldn't help herself. She'd heard this story a hundred, hundred times. She wiped at hot tears burning her cheeks.

"Then you laughed, and we knew the Morrigan had marked you as her own." Mama blindly reached for the flint knife half hidden in the blankets. Badb had to help as Mama pricked her thumb and marked Badb's forehead with blood. Mama's fingers trailed down the side of Badb's face. "We set aside the name we'd given you and cast the lots to see which of the three you," Mama coughed and finished with a whisper, "were." Badb kissed Mama goodbye. A long exhale rattled in Mama's chest, and she fell silent. Badb felt it as her spirit walked by her.

She told herself there was no shame in tears when the world changed its shape. That even now her Mama was being born again. She made herself let go of Mama's hand. She picked up the bronze scythe that her aunt had given her. She used it to gently cut off her Mama's head so she could bring it to a place of honour.

She ducked out the door of the only home she knew. She shivered as she went for she was as naked as the day she'd been born. If she was to be Badb of the Morrigan, she couldn't belong to any one tribe, and could only wear what the Morrigan granted her. 

As they'd agreed, her Aunt was milking with Badb's sisters. Papa was out hunting eels with her cousins in the bay. Badb didn't say goodbye as she climbed over the mounded houses. Not a single person in the village looked her way as she went. But then, with this day on the horizon, she'd always been apart.

The trail took her away from the sea. 

Badb came to a narrow slab of ancient stone over a merry stream. A full grown Glaistig with curved horns and black cloven hooves below her grayish legs climbed from beneath the bridge. She threatened Badb with a copper shot club and claws that bore rotted flags of flesh. Badb stood very still. She was full certain this was to be the moment. But she stopped when she saw the mark Mama had made on Badb's forehead and the burden she had in her hands.

She said, "Your pardon, Mistress. I did not know you. Forgive my rude greeting." She bowed and placed the club at Badb's feet. But as Badb looked to the clear sunlit sky, she knew she couldn't take it. She left her there, kneeling in the earth.

She walked through the day and into the night. When the moon had just risen, she saw the Nicneven flying through the air on the backs of great shinning stags. She waited to see if this to be the moment, but they saluted her with burning arrows, and turned to go the other way. Badb wanted to pick up the arrow that had fallen just off the path, but when she looked up at the clouds, they were limned with the silver of the moon. She walked on.

Come near the grey of dawn, she came upon a gaggle of young men and women, little older than herself, driving cattle that were surely not their own. An ill-done raid, taken on this night of all nights. One of them grinned at her from the back of a fine roan mare and said, "Now isn't that a lucky sight."

A girl, her cheeks pricked with the blue woad markings of an unblooded warrior, said, "Unlucky, you mean. Drustan, you can see the mark of the Morrigan on her clear as a mountain peak. Look at what she's carrying. I told you we shouldn't have come out this night."

Drustan grinned back with the smile of one who'd never been denied anything. "Genoefa, you're such a milky babe. Only the greatest of heroes can face a Morrigan." He drew a fine sword of iron. A sword like that was worth the ransom of a great chief. "If she dies, the land'll have that much more peace till the Morrigan finds and trains another to take her place."

A boy, his hair a shock of blood red, said, "What do you care for peace, Drustan? You're after fame and nothing more. But she's just a wee one. Let her on by."

Drustan kept riding down the hill with his fine leaf mail that only the richest of warriors could afford. Someone who loved him had given him all that he'd asked for his whole life. He said, "You're right, I care not for peace. But my name will live forever if I kill her."

Badb looked up at the grey dawn sky where the clouds scudded black with a murder of crows. Even untrained, the Morrigan's decision was clear. Badb bent and put down her Mama's head. She picked up what her hand would fall upon. As her hand wrapped around a stone, she knew her weapon was to be the earth. It felt right to throw it, so she did. The rock struck true. Drustan fell from his horse at her bare feet.

His horse, wiser than he, ran away.

Drustan staggered to his feet and grappled with her almost blindly, with blood streaming down the side of his foolish head. His arms were longer and his chest deeper, but the sap of the Morrigan's favour had been growing all winter in her veins. She was as strong as stone. She was the mistletoe choking an oak. She was the raven plucking out a dying man's eyes. She pinned him to the earth beneath her.

She smiled grimly as she bent to lay a kiss on his lips. This was only sort of kiss she might expect. She reached out and picked up a stone as slender as any blade and sharp along one edge. It cut the palm of her hand as she made use of that edge. He bled like a stuck pig as he died. She realized that she should have turned his body so he'd bleed downhill, but it was too late for that.

She stripped him quietly as his friends watched. She put on his blood stained clothes. The wool clung to her skin, but the leaf mail over it shone despite the blood. She put her Mama's head into a fine leather sack that he'd filled with useful treasures of gold. She walked up to where his friends stood. They shied away from her as she drove the stolen cattle down the hill. None of them tried to stop her.

She drove the cattle all the way to the Loch of the Three Sisters. She'd hoped to see at least one of the servants of the Morrigan full in her years.

What she found were two other girls her own age there by the loch. One was a dark slip of a girl with the braided black hair of a Picti of the Western isles. She wore the waxed leather of a Damnonii sailor that would show neither blood nor water. A coil of twisted grass rope was wrapped around her shoulder. She said, "I'm Anad." She pointed at a naked girl with the red braided hair of the Dalraida washing blood stained wool in the water. There was a bloody horse's jawbone by her bare feet. "That's Macha. Which means you must Badb."

"I am," said Badb, who as sudden as that long ago squall, started to cry.

She tried to tell herself there was no shame in it, but attempted to hold back her tears by hiding her face in her hands. Macha wrapped slick cold arms around her.

Anad wrapped her arms around them both. "Sister, don't hide your face. Listen to the raven's calls. Our Lady, the Dread Queen, loves tears."

Badb closed her eyes and knew it was true. She sniffed, and didn't pull away. Finally, Macha shivered at a gust, and it was time to let go. Badb took the cloak from her shoulders and wrapped it around her new sister's shoulders. Macha smiled her thanks and went back to washing her blood stained clothes.

Badb looked at the long still loch between quiet green hills.

A burnt and blackened house of reeds floated in the middle of the loch. A black mare grazed at the loch's banks. There was a cave, its opening half collapsed on the hill. On the far side of the lake, a lone oak tree loomed large. In its branches a round cottage had been woven much like a bird's nest. The body of a woman hung from the tree below the house, but the corpse had not been touched by any raven or crow. At the feet of the tree, there was a mound of grinning skulls, and two fresh heads. Badb put her Mama with the others.

As she did, she didn't ask the wind why the servant of Morrigan had made such a choice as to kill herself.

Anad said, "I was the first to arrive. For three days I was alone with her. I talked to her every day, but she did not answer. I was so glad when Macha rode over the hill, and now you." She put her hands on her hips. "We should take her body down and burn her. There's no telling which of us she is."

Macha squeezed the water out of the wool. "Do we have a flint?" None of them had any way to make fire. "Then she'll have to remain in the tree."

Badb looked at the corpse swaying in the wind. "With no one to teach us, how will we learn?"

Anad raised her chin. "We will teach each other. You are my sisters." She laughed, and Badb knew how she felt. At last, she belonged.

As the sun set bloody red on the horizon, they did not go their separate ways to the cave and the loch and the tree. They climbed together into the house in the tree. They did not want to part. With no way to make a fire, they curled around each other for warmth and whispered to each other the stories of their lives.

As spring turned to summer, Badb knew there was a world outside the valley. A world that would have a year of peace, as no warrior would want to die without a Morrigan to consecrate the battle. She knew it, but it seemed to her there was nothing left of the world but the valley where they remembered how to be servants of the Morrigan as a bird learns to fly or a fish leans to swim.

It was Badb who first saw the spark of fire in stone and coaxed it out with a gesture that soon turned into a blaze. In doing so, she taught her sisters. Macha laughed and Anad dreamily said, "Cooked fish. I was getting sorely tired of living on milk like a babe."

It was Macha who first reached out to twist the darkness like a skein in her hand and put on a raven's wings. Soon all three of them were wheeling about the sky together. Macha flew the highest, but they were no hawks. They harried hawks together and stooped to the earth laughing. Soon they were pulling on the ripples in the water and swam as eels in the loch, or gathered smoke to make the thick fur of wolves that did not care if the sky was grey or the earth covered in snow. They wore the shapes of horses and ran for the joy of running.

It was Anad who first looked at the sky and called the storm. She had the quickest temper and almost burned their oak. But soon all three of them were summoning lighting to thrust at the earth. They tossed storms around like tops and paid for it in sour milk from the cattle.

But it was no one of them who first exchanged a kiss between soft lips as they lay curled together in their bed, or if it was, they could not have said who. No one of them was the first to brush a hand over firm young breasts, or delved slender fingers in the folds between their legs.

It felt as natural as everything else they learned. Anad whispered in the night, "I never thought I'd know anything of love. I forgot there'd be the both of you." Putting words to Badb's thoughts. Macha simply embraced them both as quick and rough as a gale.

So went the year of peace.

In the spring, Macha pointed at the shape of the sparrow's flock. They did not have to speak. They knew what it meant.

They flew to a battlefield on a rolling green plain beneath a stone tower fortress. They shed their feathers like the shadows of leaves as a line of warriors stood before the gates, bashed swords on small round shields and called curses at the warriors standing in the valley below. While no few wore leather armour, and here and there were links of chain, many were bare to the sky but for thick designs of woad.

The warriors exchanged shouts until they were done with curses, and in a wordless roar ran at each other.

Badb and her sisters slipped into the battle. They were not there to witness. They were there to put strength into an arm and a slick stone under a foot. They were there to consecrate the battle with blood. They were there to bend over the dying and lay a last kiss on bloody lips that breathed their last rattle, as they sent warriors to be born again.

When it was done, they looked at the shape of the murder of crows that came to feast on the dead, but there was nothing to say beyond the obvious that one side had won and the other had lost.

They ran as wolves to another battle by the sea, where raiders on boats of wood and leather sought to overrun a stone tower in the midst of a wood daub village. As the raiders were driven into the sea, Badb read the future in the shape of the waves. She told the chief of the village, "No man will kill you, but you will die of man."

The chief gave them a stone faced look and put her hand on her belly. "So the Bean Sidhe howling each night has led me to think." She chewed her lips and her question escaped before she could think better of it. "And the babe?"

Macha said, "The runt of the litter fights the hardest to be heard."

Anad looked up at the shape of the clouds. "She'll be born of no woman and be defeated by no man."

They left the woman kneeling in the dirt weeping her relief.

So it went all that spring and summer. That year they went always together to the battles. They watched cattle raids. They appeared in the halls of the great where strife bubbled like stone soup. For there was no mead hall where the servants of the Morrigan would not be welcomed.

Anad loved the mead halls the best. She laughed and joked with the chief or lord or king of the tribe. She sometimes sang about fame and glory. Sometimes she sang of the wealth of a good herd. Her voice made Badb think of sunlit days as she sang of heroes. Badb cried when she sang. She did not go with her often to the halls of the great.

Macha preferred the raids. The fast beat of feet and the stolen cattle driven across the hills. She loved the herds of horses that the young warriors rode and put her blessing down on them.

Badb loved the heroes. She loved to be an old woman with a bundle of sticks or a warrior that had to be defeated three times. She sometimes dreamed of the day when a hero would kill her. She knew that was her fate.

She thought about it often as she cleaned the fine leaf armour of that young man on the hill. She wondered if he had a sister or a brother who would one day come for her. As the years passed, she wondered if he'd had a young son or daughter. She knew only that the day must come when a hero would come for her. She longed for it sometimes as a young girl longs for a lover.

They had been at the service of the Morrigan some nine years when met on the heath for a great battle. This was not a conflict between two villages, but two kingdoms. Hundreds of men and women fought. No one of them could have consecrated that battle alone.

When the battle was done, they stood on the top of the hill counting blessings. As they did so, two women approached them from across the heath.

In a murder of crows, Badb saw the shape of the future and the past.

As if from a distance, she heard Anad say, "Hail, Macbeth, Chief of Glamis. Chief of Cawdor, and Queen to be hereafter."

Macha said, "Hail. Banquo. Lesser than Macbeth and greater. You'll bear Kings, though you'll never be Queen."

Macbeth still held her sword in her hand. She said, "The Chief of Glamis yet lives. My Mother's brother, the King yet lives."

Banquo said with wide eyes. "Imagine, me Mother of Kings." She slapped Macbeth on the shoulder. "And you, to be Queen. I've no doubt that your fame will be sung for generations without even having to slip the Bards gold and mead."

Badba laughed and said nothing.

Macbeth didn't take her eyes off Badb. She said very slowly, "My son of my first marriage is dead. The only child I'll have of my childhood's love. Out of love, I kept him with me and did not foster him with my husband's sister." Macbeth did not say it was unlikely that she'd bear another. It was there in the crow's feet in the corners of her eyes. "He died unsung on a hillside in the spring these nine years ago."

Badb nodded. "Your son was not the hero you are."

Banquo tried to turn Macbeth to face her. "What are you talking about? The ravens consumed his flesh in a day as a sign he'd gone directly to his next life. The feast you held in his honor is still spoken of with awe."

Macbeth didn't turn away from Badb. She smiled like a winter's gale over Skaill. "If I kill you, there will be that much less war until another takes your place." She said it like someone asking for butter, but there was nothing soft in her eyes. "You have the strength of the Morrigan, but I hold the sword I gave my son." Macbeth raised her blade. It was sharp and well cared for, though it bore the signs of much use. "These nine long years, I've sought you in every battle."

"What are you doing?" Banquo tried to pull Macbeth away, but Macbeth pushed her away.

One handed, Macbeth unpinned the broach holding her cloak together. Her body was beautiful in Badb's eyes. Her bare body was covered in scars and streaked with the woad sigls of a warrior of many battles.

"I sought you in every carnal house. I sacrificed criminals to the Morrigan, but your sisters were always the ones to take my offerings" With each word, Macbeth came closer. Her voice going softer and softer. Badb swayed on her words. "My son's long decayed wounds scream for vengeance and I will give it to him."

Anad laughed like a raven laughs. "That is not why you've hunted Badb. You held tight to fame even as you clung tight to your child and did not give him to be fostered as you should have done." Anad circled Mabeth while unwinding her rope from her shoulder.

Macha slid the femur of a horse from her belt.

"I kept him close as your Mothers did you." Macbeth did not look away from Badb. "Even so."

Banquo said, "Macbeth, stop and see reason. Even if you survive this fight, the other two will be on you the moment their sister falls. Walk away. The fate of Queen awaits you."

Macha smiled a blood stained smile.

Badb willed and waited. She held Macbeth's gaze.

Macbeth looked away first.

Badb followed like a lost calf, as Macbeth and Banquo went to tell King Duncan that his death had been foretold. That Macbeth would follow him and the sons of Banquo would follow him. King Duncan took it in good stride, though the curses of his sons told a different story. King Duncan said, "All men die. If I run from fate, it will only stand waiting wherever I go."

Macbeth's husband threw a feast for the victory they'd had. The King drank heavily of mead and as his cup emptied, either Macbeth or her husband called for more. They raised toast after toast to the King. It was little surprise that Duncan fell dead by morning. The King had drunk his own weight in mead and little of it watered.

Badb sat as an uninvited guest through the feast. She ate only salted bread and little of that. Macbeth watched her the entire time with glittering eyes, and as the King fell she whispered in Badb's ear, "Meet me three months from when I am crowned." Her word were a warm wind on ears used to cold gales.

Some three months later, Badb returned to that same heath. She did not summon her sisters, but they were there when she arrived.

Queen Macbeth was waiting for her also. Her sword was naked in the misty morning.

Badb said, "Hail, Queen Macbeth." She saluted the Queen with the point of her iron tipped spear.

Queen Macbeth hand clenched about her blade. "I've come to learn…" She shook her head, and turned to walk away. Then turned around again. "How will I die?"

Anad said, "By no man's hand." She was in a temper. It was easy to tell from the way distant lightning struck the far black mountains.

Queen Macbeth laughed harsh and brief. "I wasn't asking you. And the child presently growing in my belly?"

Macha said, "Is no child of a man." She spoke softly and caressed the jawbone in her hand.

Queen Macbeth lifted her chin. "Then in this mad tale of life, I killed my friend, Banquo, for nothing."

"Not nothing," said Anad. "Even now her son grows older, while Duncan's sons seek to overthrow you."

"I didn't need a seer to know that," said Queen Macbeth. She paced in quick hard steps. Her sword arm longed to strike a killing blow.

Badb looked at the sky and felt sweet relief at what she saw. "You'll die when Birnam wood comes to Dunsinane."

"Then I'll burn the woods and live forever." There were no signs the blade would come when it did. Other than Badb knew. She blocked the blow with her spear that sparked as Queen Macbeth scraped it with her blade. They fought over the heath rich with blood. They traded blows over a swift running stream. Badb was not weak, but she leaned towards her fate as much as Macbeth strove for hers.

With a quick feint, Queen Macbeth wounded Badb in the side. Blood slid down her body and Badb felt every step in her bones. She fell to her knees on the sweet earth.

Queen Macbeth towered over her. She held the blade to Badb's throat and paused. "It's no revenge if I give you what you want. I think I will let you live."

"No!" Badb panted what was not to be her last breath.

Queen Macbeth turned away, her son's sword in her hand. "I'll dedicate every wound I make to the Morrigan. Blood will run like mead in a drunkard's mouth, and all in your name."

Badb did not watch Queen Macbeth walk away. She was enfolded in Anad's arms. She whispered "She was to be my hero."

Anad kissed her head. Far away, lighting crashed at mountain tops. Then not happy with distant thunder, Anad snapped a lightning bolt almost at their feet.

Macha said, "No, she wasn't."

Badb let herself be guided away.

She took comfort that by the rule of these things, there must be a third meeting ahead. But the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that Queen Macbeth would never strike the blow Badb was owed. The thought burned at her. She looked in the still of a river and saw the walls of Cawdor and Glamis strung with heads of fallen warriors as if they were a garland of mistletoe. She laid a hand on the earth and felt the hoof beats of Queen Macbeth's stolen herds.

She lay in her tangled bed and embraced her sisters, but she thought about the blow that she was due.

One day, as she cackled as an old woman to a young maid at a ford, she could not stand one more moment of the burning thoughts. She turned into a raven and left that poor maiden without answering her third question. Badb crossed miles and mountains until she came to the fort on top of Dunsinane hill. Queen Macbeth had been good as her word and all around the hill were charred and blackened woods.

But that did not matter to Badb. She laid her hands on the earth. She called out to the distant trees. They one by one, ripped themselves from the ground. Mossy oaks and bristling pines and wailing willows came at her call.

The trees lumbered up the hill on slow roots as warriors spilled the gates. They chopped with bronze axes, but the trees Badb had called had thick trunks. Their branches thrashed and threw bodies into the charred earth. Ropes of mistletoe reached down and strangled riders seeking to flee, while merry holly with bright red berries scratched and tangled around running legs.

Someone clever than the others, ran out with a torch. He managed to set fire to an ancient oak. Badb called the rain and quickly quenched any idea of fire.

Badb yelled, "Macbeth, come face me."

Queen Macbeth did not come.

Badb walked through the trunks of her army as the trees tore the fortress part stone by stone. She found Macbeth slumped on a carved wooden throne in her mead hall. Her husband lay on a bier beside her. His lips had the blue tinge of one who had eaten holly berries.

Queen Macbeth smiled, "At last, you've come to consecrate the blood on my hands."

"You were supposed to kill me." Badb spat on the ground. "If you won't give me what I want, why should I give you anything?"

Queen Macbeth answered by showing the sword she'd hidden under her cloak and standing from her throne.

Badb still held in her hand the scythe she'd carried as the old woman at the ford. The sword rang as it hit its curve. Above them, oaks scattered the thatch roof and gently lifted the wide oak beams of the roof and carried them away to lie in the ashy earth.

The rain beat down on them as lightning flashed on their blades. Badb leaned into her destiny, but Queen Macbeth twisted like an eel and the blade of Badb's scythe sliced open her belly. Queen Macbeth said, "There. Now the thing in my belly that I mistook for a child cannot take my life, while my name will live on forever." Queen Macbeth fell to her knees laughing. "Why have you not kissed me yet?"

"Because I was still hoping for your kiss." Badb looked down at Queen Macbeth's blood flecked lips. She took Queen Macbeth's face in her hands and tasted her blood. When Queen Macbeth's last breathe left her, Badb cut off Queen Macbeth's head with her scythe, while around them Birnam wood dismantled Dunsinane.

She calmed the trees with a word and let them take root among the ashes. She flew home with Queen Macbeth's head in her claws.

She placed the head upon the mound to grin with the others.

Macha put her hand on Badb's shoulder. She said, "She was not your hero."

Badb slipped her arm around Anad's waist and kissed Macha's cheek. "I know, but I'd hoped she would be."

They went up into the tree for a while and lay in tangled heap.

At a raven's caw, they flew out to do the Morrigan's work once more. As she flew, Badb reflected there were always more heroes.

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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